In Australia? It was very iffy. You could be given land by the King but it would take months for that info to get to Oz. In that time, the Governer of Sydney (the basic whole of Australia back then) could have given someone else the same land under the authority of the King which also could not be disputed. It would have been the word or the King against the King. Given that the currency in the early settlement days was rum, essentially people just got drunk and bitch slapped each other, or they took convict labour and the First Nations people and forced them to build fences(ish), or they died and squatters rights sometimes kicked in or the whole lot was forgotten.